fight

the things we fight for in life can be strange sometimes. the things we refuse to fight for, on the other hand, are way more illustrative. in prizefighting, there comes a time in certain fights when they throw in the towel, ceding the conquest to the opponent out of sheer self-preservation. there's a lot about the end of a relationship that's the same as that. when the end comes, you look around at the wreckage that your life has become, and you stand up and say, "enough." you're not supposed to have to fight that hard at love. sure, you need to work at some of it, but there's supposed to be at least some refuge somewhere for you in that love. when all you're doing is desperately grasping at threads, trying like all hell to weave something together that was never meant to hang that way in the first place, it's time to throw in the towel.

this is usually the time when someone would say, "nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight." okay. true. nothing worth having is free of conflict. but there's a tipping point past which sustaining something makes so little sense that it's harmful to keep it up. when you get there, and believe me, it happens to all of us at least once in our lives, you have to have the self-preservation instinct to give up the fight. walk away alive. it's the greatest gift you can give yourself.